George Di Giovanni

The theologians of the late German Enlightenment saw in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason a new rational defence of their Christian faith. In fact, Kant's critical theory of meaning and moral law totally subverted the spirit of that faith. This challenging new study examines the contribution made by the Critique of Pure Reason to this change of meaning. George di Giovanni stresses the revolutionary character of Kant's critical thought but also reveals how this thought was being held hostage to unwarranted metaphysical assumptions that caused much confusion and rendered the First Critique vulnerable to being reabsorbed into modes of thought typical of Enlightenment popular philosophy. Amongst the striking features of this book are nuanced interpretations of Jacobi and Reinhold, a lucid exposition of Fichte's early thought, and a rare, detailed account of Enlightenment popular philosophy.

This scholarly edition is the first extensive English translation of Jacobi's major literary and philosophical classics. A key but somewhat eclipsed figure in the German Enlightenment, Jacobi had an enormous impact on philosophical thought in the later part of the eighteenth century, notably the way Kant was received And The early development of post-Kantian idealism. Jacobi's polemical tract Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Herr Moses Mendelssohn propelled him to notoriety in 1785. This work, As well as David Hume on Faith, or Idealism and Realism, Jacobi to Fichte, And The novel Allwill, Is included in George di Giovanni's translation. In a comprehensive introductory essay di Giovanni situates Jacobi in the historical and philosophical context of his time, and shows how Jacobi's life and work reflect the tensions inherent in the late Enlightenment.

It is not just rhetoric to ask why we should still be reading the Young Hegelians today. In spite of their commitment to action, their influence on the politics of the times was marginal at best; and even as philosophers, the movement of thought which they represented was all but dead by 1848. Now that we read them at a distance of over a century, it is clear that for once at least the fate meted out by circumstances was well deserved. The writings of the Young Hegelians appear painfully thin in insight and force of argument. This global judgment must of course be qualified. Protestant theology has not been the same since David Strauss, and Feuerbach’s conception of man stands as the first statement of modern scientific humanism. Still, the ideal of humanity that inspired either of them has none of the historical richness of Hegel’s “spirit”; in the case of Feuerbach there is also none of the scholarship that redeems at least some of Strauss’ work. The value of both men’s writings lay mostly in their iconoclastic nature. They cleared the air, though at the cost of grave oversimplifications, of the illusion that after Hegel things could quite ever be the same again - as if the speculative comprehension of the Christian faith that Hegel claimed to have achieved could have left that faith undisturbed. But now that the profane has become the commonplace, there is little to recommend them in our eyes; and now that we have also had plenty of opportunity to notice how quickly the spirit of revolution degenerates into faction and anarchy, there is even less to recommend the rest of the Young Hegelians. The later Marx stands out intellectually in comparison to them precisely because he succeeded in breaking free from their ideological hold. I sometimes wonder whether his figure has really been enhanced by the post-war attempt at reinterpreting Capital in the light of his supposed earlier “humanism.” Sidney Hook’s statement that the late Marx was a scientist, and that his theory is to be proven either right or wrong on strictly historical and empirical evidence, might be a bit far-fetched perhaps; it still is in my mind the best compliment that one can pay to Marx.

The second biennial meeting of the North American Fichte Society was held at the University of Denver on March 19-23, 1993. Conveners were Daniel Breazeale of the University of Kentucky and Tom Rockmore of Duquesne University. Twenty-one members attended from the United States, Canada, and Switzerland. Sixteen papers were read over four sessions on all aspects of Fichte’s thought and its reception. The local arrangements by Jere Surber were excellent. It was decided to meet again in two years at Lexington, Kentucky, where the topic of discussion will be the 1794-95 Grundlage.

This is an excellent little book. As the title of the series to which it belongs indicates, it is intended as an account of the results of past and present research on Schleiermacher. The book opens with a brief statement of the contemporary relevance of this Romantic philosopher-theologian and of the difficulties of interpretation that his work presents. It then goes on with a detailed history of its reception, from early in the eighteenth century to the present. The history falls, roughly, into three periods. The first, which goes to the middle of the eighteenth century, is characterized by the fact that Idealism is still a living force in Europe. Schleiermacher’s work is then caught up in the general discussion between Hegelians and non-Hegelians—between those who considered his attempt at keeping faith and reason strictly separate as the product of an intellectual standpoint already superseded by history, and those others who thought instead that on the basis of Schleiermacher’s dichotomy, one could build a new and much more vital unity of tension. The second period is marked by a more historically detached attitude. Dilthey is the one who now set the tone. The life and the work of Schleiermacher are studied developmentally, and as examples of the spirit of an age. Dilthey called him the father of “Hermeneutics,” and it is precisely as a practitioner of this new discipline that in the third period he has finally acquired new relevance.

This volume collects for the first time in a single volume all of Kant's writings on religion and rational theology. These works were written during a period of conflict between Kant and the Prussian authorities over his religious teachings. His final statement of religion was made after the death of King Frederick William II in 1797. The historical context and progression of this conflict are charted in the general introduction to the volume and in the translators' introductions to particular texts. All the translations are new with the exception of The Conflict of the Faculties, where the translation has been revised and re-edited to conform to the guidelines of the Cambridge Edition. As is standard with all the volumes in this edition, there are copious linguistic and explanatory notes, and a glossary of key terms.

An International Fichte Congress was held at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat in Jena, September 26 to October 1, 1994, under the auspices of the Internationale Johann-Gottlieb-Fichte-Gesellschaft, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Wissenschaftslehre. Participants came from all corners of Eastern and Western Europe, Canada, Japan, and the United States. Well over one hundred papers were read on all aspects of Fichte’s philosophy and Fichte’s heritage. Among the participants from North America some were well known faces from the HSA, such as Daniel Breazeale, George di Giovanni, Tom Rockmore, Jere Surber, and Michael Vater. They all made presentations. An excursion to Weimar proved an enjoyable diversion from the otherwise strict discipline of Fichtean science.

I have only two comments to make, both of which will appear incidental at first. Their full relevance to the paper you have just read will become clear at the end, as I hope.The first refers to Harris's remark that Jacobi, Schleiermacher and Herder “make strange bedfellows”. Actually, they do not. This is one more example, I believe, of Hegel's usual idiosyncratic yet conceptually sound classification of philosophers and philosophies. I am thinking especially of the Jacobi-Herder pair, but I suspect that what I have to say would apply to the third member of the trio as well. We must remember that, at the time of the writing of the Preface to the Phenomenology, the 1815 edition of Jacobi's dialogue David Hume on Faith, which Jacobi himself had overseen, did not exist. It is the edition that we are most likely to have read, because the wonders of photomechanical reproduction have made it easily available. Hegel, however, could only have read the dialogue in its 1787 edition, without the long new Introduction which Jacobi added in 1815 as an introduction to his collected works as well.

There is no doubt that the Philosophy of Nature constituted in Hegel’s mind an integral part of his system. Even in the early years of collaboration with Schelling at Jena, when Hegel’s contribution was to be the formulation of a logic consistent with Schelling’s new idealism, Hegel repeatedly produced sketches of a theory of nature. Though that early creative period in fact culminated with the Phenomenology of Spirit, a Philosophy of Nature eventually found its canonical place in the Encyclopedia, and remained there through the various editions that the work underwent in Hegel’s lifetime. Yet, despite its obvious structural importance, this part of Hegel’s system has been the spot most vulnerable to the attacks of its enemies, and also, on the part of the sympathetic critics, the place where their different lines of interpretation have clashed the loudest.

Whether transcendental arguments are possible or not is a question that has received wide attention in the analytical literature of recent years. It is important to distinguish carefully, however, between Kant’s own Transcendental Deduction and the kind of reasoning which has lately been dubbed “transcendental.” Eva Schaper has accurately defined the difference some years ago. The “transcendental arguments” to which we have recently been accustomed are arguments that seek to establish the logical preconditions of empirical enquiry. They all start from the fact that we conceptualize experience in a certain way, and then proceed to uncover the conditions necessary to our process of conceptualization. Kant’s own Transcendental Deduction, on the other hand, is concerned with “the wider task of showing the conditions of what is to count as experience at all.” While it is always possible to render a “transcendental argument” of the contemporary type pointless simply by refusing to accept the peculiar manner of conceptualizing experience from which it starts, the conclusion of Kant’s Deduction would be irrefutable. To deny it would be tantamount to denying the possibility of experience itself. The notorious difficulties that accompany the Deduction are to be seen precisely in the light of the strong claim to proof that it makes.

This Volume contains seven works of Kant, newly translated and edited, with Introductions. What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? 1786 (Allen Wood) On the miscarriage of all philosophical trials in theodicy. 1791 (George di Giovanni Religion within the boundaries of mere reason. 1793 (George di Giovanni) The end of all things. 1794 (Allen Wood) The conflict of the faculties. 1798 (Mary J. Gregor & Robert Anchor) Preface to Reinhold Bernhard Jackmann's examination of the Kantian Philosophy of Religion. 1800 (Allen W. Wood) Lectures on the philosophical doctrines of religion (1817) (Allen W. Wood